Wild
by Brunette
Summary: Chained to the Black Pearl, Jack Sparrow realizes something he never knew before about Elizabeth Swann.


_Author's Note: I totally told myself I was done writing here, but then I saw_ Dead Man's Chest_, and, as anyone who's seen the movie knows, it makes you start to question the characters and their motives. And that always makes me get an idea for a story. So, this is a one-shot. The folks over in Newsiesdom are going to be pissed, because I've kind of abandoned those stories. But what do ya do? I've posted here a few times ... maybe someday I'll write a chapter story here. Who knows?_

_Disclaimer: Don't own nothin'._

_Spoilers: If by some fluke you haven't seen _Dead Man's Chest_ yet and still consider yourself a PotC fan, this has spoilers._

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**Wild  
**_"A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages." Tennessee Williams_

I'm in love with Elizabeth.

Which, I will be the first to admit, is quite ridiculous. Yet, it is not ridiculous for the reasons someone might assume. I suppose, if someone were to just be examining the situation, this nameless being -- we'll call this person you -- would consider in the least the fact that she is much more ... economically mobile than I. You might say, "Well, mate, she's a tad more class ..." But what class, says I? Look at the girl. The only class she has she recieved at birth. What affect did manners have on her, but an elitist developement of morality? She's a prideful woman. A damn pain in my blooming ass -- 'tis all manners ever taught her. What was meant to restrain her will strengthened it. And instead of giving over to men the determination of right and wrong, she believes it her God-given duty to speak up. Nay, not only speak up, but do in her power what she can to cease whatever it is she's finding an abomination. Her class, you say. I say impudence born of birthright.

I suppose secondly you would tell me I am too old. And, aye, I have the years on me to be her father. But what are years, in the wide span of things? She is hardly a lass. And she kisses, not like any blushing bride or meek woman or even like a hardened whore. She kisses like a man, with strength and desire and force. She is not the innocent little flower her age allows. She is ruthless and determined and ... hot. She is burning like the sun on the ocean and the -- ah, damn poetry. She is fire. She was not made for boys, but for men. And Will does not deserve her. Aye, I'll say it, Will. God love you, boy, but you don't have it in you. She's more than you've got strength and (forgive the pun, mate) will for. She will take a boy down and make him her own. She will tame him with her intensity and keep him in bright-eyed boyhood until his death. Elizabeth was made for men. For men with thick skins and harder wills and tougher determinations. For men who care nothing for her damn morality, and do not underestimate her youth. She was not made for soft-spoken boys like Will, nor lily whipped overgrown boys like her father. She's been in the charge too long of boys with no inclination of how to handle her.

And, finally, you might bring up the fact of my being rather inconveniently chained to my own ship at her doing. Yet ... it was in that moment I saw the truth, and it stung me. At that moment, when I felt the latch close over my wrist, I saw everything about her I had always hoped and in a way suspected was true of her. She is the sea. Unbridled, undaunted, unabashed, un ... Well, anyway, she cannot be tamed by those that love her. She takes them in and holds them to her will with her beauty and mystery and supposed tranquility. Beauty, mystery, tranquility ... a man can find that in any simple barmaid or lady of society. Those are attributes of a woman, and I've had women. By God, have I had women. I've known every kind of beauty to the point where it all starts to lack differences; I've known mysteries that never really held much allure to begin with; and tranquility ... What is the joy of tranquility? It bores a man after a week. Nay, I had no reason to love Elizabeth until just now.

But she made herself the bitch I always knew was in her. She proved she can overturn any man with the desire for her; that she has depths of danger masked only by a laughing mockery of peace. Elizabeth is not a woman. Her heart does not beat with shallow blue blood but with shocking wakes of salt water. I've known women. And I had found in all my pleasurable and unpleasurable knowings of them, that they were but a harmless distraction from the only true love I have ever known. The sea is my mistress. She does not love because she cannot love; she can be sheer lusty pleasure or the absolution of painful torture. And I had it in my head that there would be no lady governing my heart but that endless expansion of sapphire blue. But I have been proven wrong. Elizabeth is the sea.

And there is why it is ridiculous for one such as myself to love her. For no reasons you can procure, but for the one I know in my heart. I must not love her, because she cannot love me. Because both the sea and Elizabeth have but one lover themselves, and that is freedom. They are wild, untameable creatures. And I know now why Elizabeth has chosen a boy like Will to call her own husband. Will would never bridle her. He would never quiet her wilderness; had he the desire, even, he would lack the strength. She would be good to Will, but never would she make him a man. In the dark, quiet depths of her eyes, he would lose himself forever to her will. She would be good to him, aye. Never cruel, but never loving, either.

She thinks she has done this for him. For this love she imagines she feels for him. But it was for herself; I saw it in those doe's eyes she thinks prove her innocent. Yet in the darkness that does not glitter with her tears (much like the darkness in the sea that does not glitter with sunlight) is all the evidence needed to sentence her guiltily. Here I am, but the only man with any capability of chaining her to myself ... the only man who might ever have strength and will equal to her own -- even overpowering her -- to the point where she would give up her desires to succumb to mine. She looked at me, and I knew. No pretty son of Bootstrap Bill ever kissed her like that. I damned gentleness and damned gentlemanliness as I did the moment I became a pirate, and she knew a man who had the power to enslave her.

Up until that moment, I truly thought she was but a woman. A nagging, annoying one, but still only a woman. Now I know the truth. She knows, as I, love -- true, burning, living love -- is a cage. She may care for Will moreso than other men, but she knows he is too domestic and gentle to be loved by the likes of her. She would cremate him with her kind of love. But I ... if she were to let herself love me, there would be no hope for her. She would be bound to me. And if she was bound, slowly, that wildness about her would trickle. That element about her that is so different, would fade. And I couldn't love her if she was mine.

But I suppose there is no reason to wonder over that paradox. She has rid herself of me. She has left me to die as those cerulean waves have done so many times also. Elizabeth has abandoned me, and I love her. I will not remind myself that this is the only way I can ever love her: as the unattainable, the uncageable, the unloving. I will pretend that she is woth taming, though she is at her best when she is storming and purple with ruthless rage. I will make her my reason for an attempt at life.

So Kraken, do your worst. Elizabeth would not have left me to you if she did not love me, as well.


End file.
